


7.05: What Transgressions

by idlesuperstar



Series: The Crooked Roads [5]
Category: Spooks | MI-5
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-02
Updated: 2016-04-02
Packaged: 2018-05-29 23:00:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6397477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/idlesuperstar/pseuds/idlesuperstar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Running from it these last months has not worked, after all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	7.05: What Transgressions

**Author's Note:**

> Series notes are [here](http://archiveofourown.org/series/136827). 
> 
> This is a sidelong look at ep 7:05 from Lucas' brainpan. If you've not seen the ep then it won't make much sense. Go and watch that instead. 
> 
> Title from William Blake's [ _Broken Love_](http://www.bartleby.com/236/57.html). Intertitles are Proverbs of Hell from [ _The Marriage of Heaven and Hell_](http://www.bartleby.com/235/253.html).

_He who desires but acts not, breeds pestilence._

 

Lucas blinks awake, instantly aware that there is a crick in his neck, and his left arm is a dead weight, case files crushed under it. He really should stop falling asleep on the sofa. But sleep is still so hard won, so hard fallen into, that he is glad of it whenever it comes.

He rubs a palm over his face, pinches the bridge of his nose against the faint headache sitting there. His gaze falls on the tv, still playing quietly in the corner, and he abruptly falls back two decades to his teenage bedroom, sneakily watching late night Channel Four on his portable as if it were the most transgressive thing imaginable.

He stretches, flexing his arm to work out the pins and needles; watches Daniel Day-Lewis’ shock of white-blond hair, the sharp, handsome lines of his jaw, his eyebrows.

A sudden pang, nostalgia and arousal both; that long-gone curious teenager that he was, a time that felt complicated and almost dramatic, _poetic_. A time that now - from this shifting, shades-of-grey present - seems enviably full of straight lines and primary colours.

Daniel Day-Lewis is still handsome, he knows from dvd covers and billboards. His face is still sharp and uncompromising, his body lean and coiled tight with energy. So different from Oleg.  
Lucas shifts onto his side, eyes still on the screen, the past warring with the present.There is nothing there of Oleg’s broad solidity, the sheer dense power of him.

Lucas had fought many people stronger, broader, taller than himself. But he’d never taken anyone like that to bed.

His cock twitches in his jeans, a low thrum of arousal coiling dark in his belly. Was Oleg always strong, broad, solid? Or was he a gangly teen? And did he find, in that new world after _glasnost_ and _perestroika_ , transgressive things as well?

He cannot do this. He cannot _allow_ this. He has fought so hard to regain some sort of equilibrium. He has untangled himself from Arkady, scorching the earth as he went. He has slotted himself back into the service, made himself useful, a necessary cog. He cannot keep that fragile balance if he lets this need overtake him.

He cannot be craving that hot, heavy hand on him, that inescapable, fierce press of body weight, that uncompromising voice in his ear.

He refuses to touch himself, to unzip his jeans, to allow that relief. Not when all he can think of is not what he is seeing on the screen.

Jesus _fuck_ he needs to get laid. He huffs out a laugh, part recrimination, part desperation.  
How to even start. He was never good at dating, even before. Drunken snogs at student discos, yes, vodka-fuelled conversations about music and books into the small hours, those too, but not the awkward small talk and unwritten rules of dating. And now - the minefield of casual questions, curious glances, the chess game of expectations.

He is too weary to add another level of subterfuge.

And - the truth of it - any woman he picked up would fall so far short of Veta that it would be worse to do it than not.

He could go to a gay club, if he didn’t hate the music, the price of the drinks, the lack of visible exits. Gay clubs probably haven’t changed that much in a decade. Somewhere his tattoos would not need a story, where any talk would be blessedly straightforward.

And then? Anxiety roils low through him. Not fear of discovery, of recriminations. The service has come some way, after all. And not fear of liking it too much, getting lost in someone for a night.  
Fear - and this is the worst of it - that it, too, would fall short.

That every touch, every breath, every hand on him would not be Oleg’s touch, Oleg’s breath, Oleg’s hand; the terrible, seductive power of him.

He is so, so, _very_ fucked.

He shoves himself up off the sofa, switches off the telly, leaving Thatcher’s Britain behind. He won’t sleep now, he knows. He needs to run. Run the night dark streets of the city until his breath shudders hard into his lungs and every part of him aches and he has driven all of it out of his head and there is nothing but blissful emptiness, and exhaustion, and sleep.

Maybe this time it will work.

 

* * *

 

Another day, another threat to the security of the nation. The morning sees him briefing the Chancellor. Harry would - if pushed to justify himself - argue that there’s never any need to enlighten Whitehall until it is absolutely necessary. Five is there, after all, to do the dirty work, and the less the politicians know of the details, the more convincing their declarations of ignorance can be.

And there is always dirty work. Just because it’s the glossy world of high finance, rather than young idealists with suicide bombs, doesn’t mean there isn’t bloodshed: Lucas slaps down mortuary photos on the desk, and Calderwood flinches.

She’s firm though. And she has what any modern politician would kill for - integrity. Or at least, the appearance of it. Which is mostly the same thing, these days.

 

* * *

 

Despite half a decade spent mastering the art of patience, waiting around on the grid is still a nightmare. Any restraint chafes, in this hard won freedom.

What is free will, after all, without the freedom to exercise it?

When Jo finally appears she is wild eyed; trembling next to him as they wait for Malcolm to work his magic. But she brushes his concern aside, much as he would hers. Malcolm comes up blank: Meynell is more skilled at covering his tracks than they anticipated.  
“Right,” Lucas says, grinning a little, feeling the energy thrumming through him, now there is something he can finally be doing, “time I paid a visit to Meynell’s office.”

~

He grimaces at his reflection as he straightens his tie. He’s always hated suits, doesn’t recognise himself in them.

Recognises himself even less, now. Still forgets, until he catches a glimpse in a shop window, the bathroom mirror. That moment of disjunct between eight years ago and and now.

He avoids his reflection, mostly. Avoids looking himself in the eye. He’s his own harshest judge, after all.

He straightens his shoulders, settles his body into Pete. Pete is cocky, successful, untroubled. His lean muscles come from a gym addiction, his too-sharp jawline from quality coke at the weekends.

The red tie is Pete’s nod to Wall Street, Lucas tells himself.

Nothing to do with his teenage rebellion, pinning a communist badge onto his school blazer.

Nothing to do with a red tie being one lost generation’s green carnation.

Nothing to do with these things at all.

~

Ros’ face is a picture of surprised pleasure, while her eyes say _what the fuck, Lucas_ even as she kisses him.

She’s the first person he’s kissed since - he can’t think of that, now. He’s Pete, who kisses her whenever he likes.

He’s ridiculously thankful that everything is easy with Ros, that they read each other well, now.

Defusing a bomb in a microwave will do that, he thinks.

It’s more than that. They’re old campaigners, after all. They speak the same language.

Meynell rings every alarm bell Lucas has, and he has strung up a million more in his time in Lubyanka. His charm is cloying, like a fading roué. The lines of his face are beginning to smear, as if he is the portrait in the attic.

Lucas leaves Ros to it, gut roiling at what she has to do. What they all have to do, some days. For Queen and country. And Harry fucking Pearce.

 

* * *

 

Meynell is extremely good at what he does. Had Lucas not shaken the man’s hand, not seen his prurient interest in Ros, he’d take this righteous passion at face value.

There is very little Lucas takes at face value, anymore.

Meynell’s sidekick loiters, jangling more alarms along his nerves. His face itches at Lucas’ memory. Lucas pushes his shoulders back, breathes his body back into Pete; cynical, careless, mostly innocent. It works, until the crash of a tray strings his muscles taut again.

Jo’s disintegration is visible on the surface now. He tamps down his anger and frustration and shepherds her away from the worst of the onlookers. It’s hardly her fault, anymore than his own cracks are his fault, but he despises her a little, in this moment, for being so weak.

Harry should have sorted this before now.

A flash of memory: Harry’s reflection, that first evening, guilt and dismay warring on his face, everything unspoken. Harry has many talents, but he is fucking awful at dealing with the messy reality of emotions.

Lucas is hardly better, but at least he sees that she can’t continue like this.

It will break her. And endanger them all.

~

He waits in the early evening sun, fighting the urge to just run to where Ben is, find what he’s looking for faster.

And then Ben - after a few heart-shuddering moments of silence - tells him the bank is Salma. 

Just once, Lucas thinks as he peels away from the curb effortlessly, just once, it would be nice if everything didn’t come back to _fucking_ Russians.

 

* * *

 

The familiar flood of guilt that Veta’s tense face brings is less forceful, this evening.

It could be the play of sunlight brightening her features, or the residue of Pete’s indifference that he’s not quite shaken off. He knows though, that it’s the urgency ripping through him that’s deflected the worst of it. He can’t dwell on it, not when the Russian mafia are on the scene and Ros is inviting herself into Meynell’s parlour.

His mind is already racing, plotting five moves ahead, when Veta says she wants to talk.

He shudders back into reality, looks hard at her, seeing, suddenly, the myriad signs of her at her very limit. So familiar, and so out of place, here. They _cannot_ do this now. She must realise. But this is what happens when amateurs get dragged into their world.

“Don’t use me unless you know you can give me everything.”

Her voice is hard, and she could simply be talking of their work, but she is trembling with days of building to this, and Lucas knows she means the two of them. She doesn't get that it's not even a choice. That he’s already turning from her as she speaks.

There are parts of him now that she can never know, never have. Those hidden, fallen parts, smudged over with Oleg’s fingerprints, again and again until they are changed forever.  
Parts - Jesus _fuck_ he cannot afford to think of this right now - that he doesn’t _want_ to give her.

He watches her progress away from him - quick, determined, resigned - until he can no longer see her.

Lets her go.

 

* * *

 

_You never know what is enough unless you know what is more than enough_

 

He’s groping for something comforting to say to Malcolm when Harry blows in from wherever the fuck he’s been and half-orders Lucas into the office.

He doesn’t know what’s wrong but the last thing he expects is an almost-contrite Harry. He waits for him to spit out whatever it is that’s got him so discomfited.

He isn’t kept wondering long. “When I told you I’d never heard of Sugarhorse, I was lying.”

And holy _fuck_ , how had he ever imagined he’d gained some steadiness, some balance?

Harry routinely asks the impossible of them but this is so far beyond the pale that he can barely speak.

“Why?” he grits out. As if he could ever get an explanation from Harry _fucking_ Pearce.

Harry’s expression is bland, deflecting, and Lucas knows he is being sacrificed on the altar of Harry’s needs, yet again. “I was tortured for seventeen days,” he manages, amazed at how calm he sounds. Harry _knows_ this. And yet it’s still fair game for whatever Harry wants to dig out of him.

He feels the rage roil through his blood like arousal; the pure clear burn of righteous anger that he’s kept so carefully tamped down all these months.

“There are limits to what you can ask of people, Harry,” he says, unashamed of the crack in his voice. If anyone here should be ashamed it’s not him, for once.

He barely hears Harry’s apology, cannot stand to look at him a second longer. If he doesn’t leave now his anger will spill out everywhere, messy and demeaning, and Harry will gain the upper hand back.

Or a fist in his face.

~

_Breathe, Lucas._

_Breathe_.

The evening is cool now, the sky smudging into darkness overhead. It should be enough to calm him, but it takes the echo of Oleg’s voice in his ear to do that.

He takes another breath.

It feels like a cliché, standing on the roof of Thames House, something out of a tv show about spies. But he can’t afford to go off-grid, not with Ros where she is. And he needs a sliver of solitude, of quiet, to settle his thoughts. To get the clamour that Veta and Harry have unleashed to recede into silence.

To hear that low dark voice, bringing him back to himself.

The irony of it is not lost on him. That the hand held out to steady him is neither Veta’s or Harry’s.

He gazes at the lights along the river, at the vast open darkness above, at London unfolding to the horizon.

Breathes.

Goes back to work.

~

_If the lion was advised by the fox he would be cunning_

 

“What a mess,” Harry says. He’s talking about Denham, and Meynell, and the Russian fucking mafia knowing who Lucas is, but it’s an apt description of the whole day.

Lucas stays in the background as they brief Calderwood. He can’t bring himself to look at Harry more than necessary. Not even when the country’s on the brink of bankruptcy.

Ros sounds tense, too-calm, but she might just have found their way out.

“Is she insane?” Calderwood asks, but Lucas can see what game she’s playing. It’s amazing. If anyone can pull it off it’s Ros.

Whitehall crumbles in the face of a united Service, as Harry knew it would, no doubt. Harry’s the best bluffer in the business, after all.

 

* * *

 

London is never full dark, even in the witching hour, but as Lucas crosses Lambeth Bridge he hears the river’s roar louder than usual; like the ocean at night, more vast and powerful than the daylight hours.

_Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar._

The horrors that have kept him awake, driven him from his restless bed, burn through him, jagged and chaotic, scattering his thoughts. He’s of no use like this.

He forces himself to still, leans against cold stone, listens to the slosh and slap of the water.

Breathes.

 _Pilgrim_.

He goes to work.

 

* * *

 

FIve minutes ‘til the markets open; the anxiety in his stomach is as much to do with waiting as lack of sleep and Ben’s terrible coffee.

He has faith in Ros, but only an idiot would relax with Bratva in the frame.

“I thought you might like to know,” Darlek’s voice murmurs in their ears, unruffled, “I have a gun pointing at your officer’s head.” Ben is only a second ahead of him as they make for the doors. He’s suddenly really fucking glad of his weeks of running. Another helping hand from the darkness, he thinks.

Ros is - of course - in complete control of the situation. She’s got the gun on Darlek but it’s Meynell who looks like he’s waiting for the bullet.

“The system is rotten,” Meynell says, desperate. And he’s _right_ , it is _so_ rotten. But you can’t take the moral high ground and then share it with gangsters.

He has the look of a man whose world has crumbled to dust. Ros really got to him. Lucas almost feels sorry for him.

Almost.

~

“Well done,” he says to Ros. He doesn’t want to think about what she had to do. But he wants her to know he’s with her. It’s not hard to say.

“Has anyone spoken to Jo yet?” she asks Harry. Jo’s troubles are there for all to see, but Lucas is still glad that Ros is thinking of Jo right now. It’s another deflection, of course. But then, isn’t everything, some days.

The idea of Harry trying to counsel to Jo is just too awkward to contemplate. Ros’ practicality is much closer to what she needs. Harry’s relief is palpable as washes his hands of another unpleasant task. For a master gameplayer, he’s horribly transparent.

Lucas’ mobile rings. Veta.

He doesn’t answer. What is there to say? He has already let her go. He can’t bear having to speak the words aloud.

He looks at the tattered photo. _I want to tell you a tale, of how I loved and how I failed._

Says the words to Ben. Professional. Uninvolved.

Feels all the energy slump out of him. An odd sort of peace. It’s been a long, long day. There’s just one last thing to do.

He’s so far past tiredness that everything is vaguely unreal, distanced. It’s probably for the best.

“Harry, I was angry last night.”

If Harry notices it’s not an apology, he doesn’t show it. He listens attentively enough as Lucas tells him what he’s found. Lucas had read the file, of course, but he doesn’t know this Qualtrough. Harry obviously does. Did.

Lucas isn’t sure what it means, but the file is shaking in Harry’s hand, and clearly it has rattled him. In a week that’s bruised him in many ways, this is almost the most shocking thing of all.

 

* * *

 

_Those who restrain Desire, do so because theirs is weak enough to be restrained_

 

Lucas blinks awake from a dream where he has Oleg pinned to the wall of his cell, Oleg’s carotid pulse hot and frantic under his palm.

He considers - for a breath - making himself yet again think of it as a prelude to a beating, to retribution, but he’s already hard; the arousal sparking through his veins is too heady, too real. He can still feel the familiar solid warmth of Oleg’s stomach against his own.

Here, then, in the empty darkling hour of suicides and truths, he chooses - finally - to accept it.

Running from it these last months has not worked, after all.

_We are all free to fall, Lucas._

He closes his eyes, slides his palm down his abdomen, blinks easily back into the dream.

  
Oleg’s eyes, dark and unwavering, even as his breathing stutters raggedly against Lucas’ cheek. Lucas tightens his hand on Oleg’s throat, on his own cock. Smiles at the low moan Oleg can’t keep back.

And then Oleg’s hands, scrabbling at his shirt, his trousers, until they are both messily half-naked, pressed up hard against each other, sweat and grime and the awkward twist of fists.

Oleg gasping for air against the press of Lucas’ palm, his muscles bowstring taut, the whole fierce solid weight of him, his hand sure and tight and perfect on Lucas’ cock.

Lucas holds Oleg’s gaze, relentless, watching for him to break from Lucas’ hands on him. Leans into him, breathes hot against his ear, feels his pulse jump. Waiting for him to fracture.

This - as much as Oleg’s merciless hand - is what lights flares along his nerve endings.

“ _Lucas_ \- " Oleg breathes out, voice cracking and low, desperate, fingers digging hard into his arm, and the sound of it shudders victorious down Lucas’ spine. He grins, triumphant, and in that second Oleg surges forward, uncaring of Lucas’ hand on his throat. Lucas tightens his grip on Oleg’s cock, waiting for the end, for Oleg to shake apart.

But Oleg _kisses_ him, messy and fierce, _shocking_ , and Lucas groans into his mouth and comes so hard he cracks his head on the wall.

~

There’s blood on his lip. Where Oleg _kissed_ me, he thinks, still submerged. Drowning willingly.

 _Freely they stood who stood, and fell who fell._ Oleg, godless as himself, murmuring Milton into his ear, eyes blazing like Lucifer, determined, demanding… _entreating_.

They forged this unholy bond between them. This is not Lucas’ weakness alone. This is their strength together.

He licks his lip again, chasing the taste, fighting consciousness, reality. _Awake, arise or be for ever fall’n._

Well then, let him be fallen, and unashamed.

_I’m sick, there’s not a thing I want to do about it._

He stretches his sated body, pressing lazily into sheets heady with sweat and sex and the memory of Oleg against him.

~

His room is grey-dark when he finally opens his eyes to it, spunk cooling stickily on his hand, his belly. He thinks about getting up to clean himself, shifts reluctantly to look at the alarm.

 _3:04_ stares back at him, unrelentingly real.

6:04 in Moscow, he thinks automatically. Knows, with the certainty of madness, that Oleg too is lying in an empty bed, awake. Is as trapped in his freedom as Lucas is in his.

_Our state cannot be severed._

This is the current running beneath everything between them. Not just those terrible hours, days, months in that bleak cell, but every grey, windswept walk, every fevered argument over some long dead poet.

Oleg gave himself away every day, in the books they talked of, just as Lucas did.

And now those poets burn through them, crystallising thoughts never spoken aloud.

_To lose thee were to lose myself._

 

* * *

**Author's Note:**

> A samovar full of vodka for [jennytheshipper](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Jennytheshipper/pseuds/Jennytheshipper) for a quick and dirty beta on this. Any remaining confusion is mine own. 
> 
> So when I read (*cough* sort of *cough*) [ _Paradise Lost_](http://www.bartleby.com/4/401.html) at uni, little did I think it would ever be of any use. How wrong I was. I'm sure loads of bad fics have characters quoting poetry during sex; not sure how many have them quoting Paradise Lost while wanking. Do I get a prize? 
> 
> Anyway, Lucas would definitely know Paradise Lost as _The Marriage of Heaven and Hell_ is pretty much Paradise Lost fanfic. My headcanon for those Lucas/Oleg estuary walks is ridiculously detailed - I do feel that Oleg would take any literary reference Lucas made that he didn't know and hoard it, research it, and come back quoting it without ever acknowledging what they were doing. And the whole tangled mess of free will/not free will/freedom/sin/etc etc is so very Lucas/Oleg.
> 
> Lucas also quotes The Verve and Spiritualized, because he is still listening to favourite albums from when everything was much less complicated. Not something your author would ever do, of course not.


End file.
